I’m going to skip over the sonnets that Montaigne substituted for his Treatise on Involuntary Servitude this time and go straight to his next piece on Moderation. It’s a very strange essay that doesn’t seem to be about moderation at all.

It starts off fine enough, arguing that taking too zealous a philosophical position might actually do you more harm than good. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an recent example in her statement that “woke one was crazy,” an attempt at walking back political positions during the pandemic that have done lasting damage to the Democratic Party’s appeal to moderates.

Whether AOC will succeed in her walk back, I’m not sure, but I’m fine with her taking a shot at it. Republicans are allowed to shape-shift constantly without repercussion. Vice President JD Vance has changed everything about himself multiple times, including his name three times. Donald Trump was a pro-abortion Democrat until he decided the easier path to power was becoming an anti-abortion Republican. If they can flip and flop at will, why not so on the Left?

But Montaigne doesn’t stick to politics in this essay, he moves on to the strange matter of having too much passion for your wife and corrupting her with sex that is … what, too good? He even states that it is better to have someone else corrupt your wife’s sexual morality than the husband.

And the essay follows this path all the way to criticizing self-disciplinary rituals and, eventually, religious massacres. But he doesn’t actually criticize the cultures that do this, he just notes how common it is with nearly all nations and all religions. It makes me wish he had stuck to his agreement and published the Treatise on Involuntary Servitude afterall, at least then he would have to defend a critique of despotic rule.

I have no problem standing up for moderation, but we seem to live in an age where people express a desire for greater moderation, then punish them. The Republican Party seems to have purged its moderate wing altogether, and Democrats on the Left are having far more success this electoral cycle than those squishy centrists.

People advocating various Maxxing strategies for life seem all the rage now. While I think I live a fairly moderate life in the aggregate, I get there with a series of fanatical habits: starting with a pescatarian diet and workouts six days a week. I have daily goals in writing, reading, movie watching and music practice and enforce them with detailed daily checklists. I do not allow myself to work during weekends, but also don’t allow myself to stop working each workday until specific benchmarks are reached.

The end result of all this, to me at least, is a life in balance. I feel like I get something valuable out of every day and continue to build towards accomplishments. I achieve moderation through serial fanaticism. I don’t necessarily recommend it for anyone, but it works for me.